


but monsters are always hungry

by icannotlivewithoutmysoul



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-13
Updated: 2013-07-13
Packaged: 2017-12-20 02:48:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/882057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icannotlivewithoutmysoul/pseuds/icannotlivewithoutmysoul
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pomegranates have always been her favorite fruit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	but monsters are always hungry

**Author's Note:**

  * For [magisterequitum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/magisterequitum/gifts).



> For Jordan, on the monumental occasion of her birthday.

_i._ Eleusis

 

Mystic Falls is not what anyone would call eventful. It has its fair share of official events, but there are no particularly vivacious entertainments to speak of. Elena likes it, anyhow. She rejoices in the familiarity of it, the pleasant enjoyment of family dinners and nights out with friends, in the elaborate dates that Matt organizes for her. Mystic Falls is not boring, it’s simply another Southern town like hundreds of others, and she appreciates it for what it is, for its simplicity and the quiet charm it radiates.

Fall is her favorite season. She doesn’t particularly enjoy the cold, but it’s the season of pomegranates and pomegranates have always been her favorite fruit, ever since she was little. There’s something intoxicating about the taste of them, she thinks, the combination of flavors barely a hint of _something_ on her tongue, something that she wants more of but can’t quite put her finger on what exactly that is. So she compartmentalizes it, takes it apart and examines it from half a dozen different angles. Sweet, she decides, just like how she’s been brought up to be. Acidic, too, not unlike the undisclosed side to her personality that she keeps carefully hidden under a thick veneer that’s equal parts girl next door and goddess at whose feet you kneel.

Nothing about Elena ever whispers of darkness. She’s a sweet, fun girl to be around, that’s what they all think. Elena thinks so, too. She tries not to let her mind linger on the dreams, the vivid shocks of heat and furious color and blood that flood her sleep.

 

 _ii._ Olympus

 

Elijah has never been one for crass displays of power. He doesn’t need the entire world to know of his power, to constantly cower from it, in order to know he has it. That’s why his every movement is guarded, controlled. Every once in a while, though, he will choose somebody (mortal or immortal, it matters little – nobody has his own brand of immortality, after all) and show them exactly what he’s capable of, what he delights in doing. It’s not the blood itself what drives him, no, it’s far less simplistic than that. What Elijah thrives on is fear, but not just anybody’s. Like a selective music director, he will choose ( _this one’s worthy, this one’s not_ ) and, once he’s found that perfect person, somebody whose fear he can rejoice in, whose admiration he can use to light a spark in his long deadened chest, he will move. Quickly and precisely.

_Look. This is what I can do._

It’s never about the people he kills. They’re just a vessel, a means to an end. Collateral damage. It’s about whom he kills them for. In this case, for the thrice born girl who smiles at him mockingly and shakes her head silently, amusement waltzing in her eyes and death on her lips. He wants those lips on him, wants to feel her teeth, blunt or sharp, he cares not. He wants to destroy her and create her anew.

So when Carol Lockwood, fully trusting of the kind man who vows to help bring Elena Gilbert back home, shares with him the information of Elena’s hiding place, Elijah’s smile widens.

At last.

 

 _iii._ Underworld

 

Pomegranates have always been her favorite fruit, she thinks once again after what seems like forever. It is, in a way. The quiet eden of Mystic Falls has become hell, darkness has enveloped her whole and she’s no longer burdened by fears of the shadows that lurk beneath her own skin and flesh. She has come to revel in the knowledge that she, her whole being, is the embodiment of darkness. She’s plagued by it, has been hunted by demons for far too long and far too often not to have swallowed them whole and spat them out undone, their horror and darkness now swaying to an intimate dance inside of her. It’s acceptance, finally, of the fact that the most daunting of them were always within her, cowering in the face of sunshine but coming out to play in her dreams, what sets her free at last.

It’s this knowledge, this conviction of her status as a monster, which in turn has led her to fall in love with monsters as well. But now – now she has left them all behind, she has ripped herself away from the monsters she knew, the simplistic ones she understood and looked down on, to eagerly absorb the pitch black soul of the biggest monster of them all.

She smiles, all sharp teeth and red eyes, and beckons him, softly tracing the pomegranate in her hand with loving fingers soaked in blood. Compelling Carol Lockwood was a touch of brilliance, if she does say so herself. She knew he wouldn’t be able to resist the temptation of finally getting a chance to break her, to tear her apart.

“You came,” she says, and he’s standing before her, eyes narrowed in sudden understanding, before crushing her against the wall, eager to crack her open and pry her deepest fears from her mind, pull them apart so he can insert himself in their place.

He’s about to find out who’s going to break whom.


End file.
